The kbbreview Interview // Sharon Wallis
Sharon Wallis
You became MD of Poggenpohl UK in 2020 but, your association with the brand goes back even further, tell us how you wound up where you are today? It started back in 2003 when, like many people I kind of fell into the KBB industry. I originally trained as an accountant and Poggenpohl was a client in the practice I worked. Over the next few years the business grew, and I became the full-time manager of the account. I got to know the brand inside out and in 2006, I joined the business as financial controller, with a promotion in 2008 to financial director. In this role, I became heavily involved in the operational side of the business, and from there my career here snowballed. I was lucky to have some great mentors in the business who I still consider friends. If you like the people you work with, you become emotionally involved and it becomes more than just a job. I love the brand; I love the product, but I do also think that it’s the team that plays a big part in setting us apart from others.
Would you say then that people play a big role in defining your management style? I don’t lead the business alone. I have a very strong management team and we all have very different skills. I'd define my management style as a balanced approach. I can be firm, but I believe I’m fair. Sometimes, I have to make difficult decisions, but I try to deliver those in the right way. We have a very low turnover of staff, and we’ve all become friends as well as colleagues.
What does it mean to be the custodian of such an iconic kitchen brand in the UK? Well, it’s a big responsibility. I’m very proud to say that I am that person at this point in time. And I hope to do it justice. The brand is 132 years old, and we’re celebrating 50 years in the UK this year, so we have a lot of history. But I firmly believe that we’ve got a fantastic future ahead as well. We’ve had a fabulous year with innovative new design launches, like Diamond and Wing. We’re following the same direction we’ve always taken but going even further to really elevate ourselves within the industry and I hope that that continues.
Poggenpohl went through a particularly challenging period in 2020, around the same time that you took over as MD of the brand here in the UK. That must have been a steep learning curve… It was a really tricky period to take over a business. One of my first jobs as MD was to close all of the studios due to Covid and put 90% of our staff on furlough. I’d say that’s when my financial background played an important role as I had to manage us through that difficult and uncertain period. Not only did we have the pandemic to contend with, shortly after lockdown the announcement was made that the German business was being put into liquidation. It was a challenging time, but it helped that I’d had a great handover from my predecessor, Simon Richmond, and my focus was just to be as transparent as possible.I can’t stress enough that we have a great team behind the brand, everybody just did what they had to do and, thankfully the story ended well, and Poggenpohl Group was acquired by Jomoo. The brand has a new CEO too, Lars Erikson. His industry experience will ensure a cohesive approach to the company's international presence.
How do you feel that Jomoo’s ownership has shaped the trajectory of Poggenpohl and how you can develop it in the UK? It’s allowed us more freedom to push the business forward how we would like to. They’re very supportive. The first investment that they signed off as a Group was relocating our Poggenpohl Chelsea studio to a much bigger property on Fulham Road. They’d just bought the business and less than three-months later I was knocking on the door asking if I could have a significant investment signed off. But they could see what we were trying to achieve with the move, and they got behind us. That showroom is at this moment in time, our best studio in the UK so it paid off, but I appreciate it would have been a big decision to make at that time. >
November 2024
kbbreview
27
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